User Reviews

This episode is another honorable mention, it's similar to the Twilight Zone tale "Little Girl Lost" but personally I think this episode is a little better because we see the protagonist engage in the other dimension.

This story is it's basically an entrapment thriller only the place their entrapped in is another dimension which makes the situation all the trickier because in other dimensions it means certain rules are different. The suspense is hoping somehow the protagonist can learn those rules on time and use them to his or her advantage.

I do like how in the first half of the story, it's at first a gradual build up, where it's all a mystery at first and just like the protagonist we're filled with questions like why is her neighbor's house abandoned, what happened to her friend, but the big question is why is a big door in the attic which looks like an enlarged doll house door, let alone what is the door and the dollhouses connection? All those questions really add to the suspense but most importantly the enigmatic quality as we do get some answers to some questions but not all.

It then comes down to the dollhouse venture sequence which I really like. The set pieces are great I really like how they make everything look like enlarged pieces for a dollhouse, even like that some pieces look jumbo sized from food on the table, to even the toys in the attic. It really gives the place a surreal foreboding quality, because everything is so strange and unfamiliar, which give you that creeping feeling of disorientation.

I also like the tale has the body horror aspect. We do see her friend Susan which is really creepy and sad as we see she is slowly turning into a doll, really like the makeup work on her, she really looked like porcelain. Though I'll admit one moment gave a slight chill but also wince in pain as we see her take her hand off; this really ratcheted up the threat level from medium to hi as we realize how serious the condition really is and that time is running out as both are slowly but surely becoming inhuman.

Can Melissa find a way out before it's too late, you'll have to wait and find out.

Rating: 3 and a half stars.

Dolls and attics - always a winning combination in terms of scares! This episode is one of my absolute favourites because it gets so weird and has a really cool and spooky plot device they you may have never heard of before... Okay, for a start I thought the mousy lead girl was okay, but she was a bit boring. I liked the woman playing the aunt better, who was a little melodramatic with her lines, but she was nice and was a little more decent than the average adult actor on the show. The man playing the uncle was a horrible actor though, he was so bad I found him funny to watch! A scene where he and the aunt discuss what they believed happened to the missing girl next door was unintentionally hilarious because they're both talking quite loudly about four feet away from Melissa who they think is sleeping! I just love those kinds of nonsense moments with this show. I still really like the makeup effects of Susan the girl trapped in the mysterious dollhouse of doom! While not as impressive as I remembered, the bizarreness of the powdery white face and porcelain limbs and stiff walk all convey well the idea that she's slowly turning into a doll and that she can't escape because she can only move like one and has fused fingers and stuff. She may not be malicious, but the idea is pretty nightmarish - a disturbing gradual transformation followed by an eerie state of living death, that's damn creepy!! I like how it's a tale with no actual villain. It's called "The Tale of the Dollmaker", but the only dollmaker we ever meet is the dollhouse itself. The spookiest part for me is when Melissa first peers into it and and a tiny door slams shut. And the scenes where she first figures out the way into the dollhouse and wanders around trying to figure out its secret have a cold atmosphere to them that nicely build up the suspense. And what an original idea! Such a neat little idea for a story, I loved how it was a miniature replica of the real house and how the exit to it was where the entrance was in the real house and required a leap of faith. A house-within-a-house-within-a-house! I thought it was a fairly awesome, mind-bending story concept, and is absolutely the reason I love this episode and consider it one of the show's greatest! X